This is the first textbook on Israel to utilize a historical-sociological approach, telling the story of Israeli politics rather than simply presenting a series of dry facts and figures. The book emphasizes six specific dimensions of the conduct of Israeli politics: the weight of historical processes, the struggle between different groups over how to define the country’s identity, changing understandings of Zionism, a changing political culture, the influence of the external threat environment, and the inclusive nature of the democratic process. These themes offer students a framework to use for understanding contemporary political events within the country. Politics in Israel also includes several chapters on topics not previously addressed in competing texts, including historical conditions that led to the emergence of Zionism in Israel, the politics of the Arab minority, and interest groups and political protest.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1: Israel in Historical and Comparative Perspective
Studying Israel
Israel in a Comparative Framework
Major Themes of the Book
A Note on Terminology

PART I: HISTORICAL PROCESSESChronology of Key EventsChapter 2: Zionism and the Origins of Israel
Jewish History before Zionism
The Jewish Predicament in the 19th Century
The Founding of the Zionist Movement
Implications of Zionism
Herzl’s Path to Zionism
Organizing the Zionist Movement
Zionist Ideologies
The Palestine Mandate
Summary

Chapter 3: Yishuv Politics during theMandate Period
Constructing a Jewish Society
Development of a Party System
Conflict between Arabs and Jews in Mandatory Palestine
Deteriorating Zionist-British Relations
The End of the Mandate
The Mandate Period in Perspective
Summary

Chapter 4: State Building After 1948 Mamlachtiut
The Political Arena
Defense
Education
Economy
Personal Status Issues
Other State-Building Efforts
Summary

PART II: ISRAELI SOCIETY
Chapter 5: Political Culture and Demography
The Pre-State Period
Foundational Values of the State
Changes since 1967
From Collectivism to Individualism
Political Culture in the Arab Community
Demography
Summary

Chapter 6: Religion and Politics
Religion and the Idea of a Jewish State
Setting the Parameters of the Religion-State Relationship
Growing Involvement in Politics
Issues in Religion-State Relations after 2000
Religious Parties and Coalition Politics
Summary

Chapter 7: The Politics of the Arab Minority
What’s in a Name?
Changing Politics of the Community
Jewish Attitudes toward the Arab Minority
Arab Leaders and the Arab Public
Voter turnout
Sayed Kashua as Barometer?
Summary

PART III: THE POLITICAL PROCESS
Chapter 8: The Electoral System
The Development of an Electoral System
Election Laws
Parties and Lists
Electoral Reforms
Summary

Chapter 9: Political Parties and the Party System
Party Clusters
Leftist Parties
Rightist Parties
Religious Parties
Arab Parties
Center or “Third” Parties
Ethnic or Special Issues Parties
Party Organization
Summary

Chapter 11: Interest Groups and Political Protest
Changing Access in the Israeli Political System
Interest Groups
Political Protest
Summary

PART IV:INSTITUTIONS
Chapter 12: The Knesset
Structure of the Knesset
Legal Aspects
Knesset Members
Functions and Powers of the Knesset
Relationship to the Government
Summary

Chapter 13: The Government
The Government at the Center of the System
Powers of the Government
Forming a Government
Maintaining and Running a Government
Relations with the Knesset
The President of the State
Summary

Chapter 14: The Judiciary and the Development of Constitutional Law
The Judicial System
Structure of the Court System
The Religious Court System
The Attorney General
Basic Laws: A Constitution in the Making?
Interpreting the Constitution
Summary

PART V: POLITICS AND POLICYMAKING
Chapter 15: Political Economy
Ideas about Economic Development in the Yishuv
A State(ist) Economy
Likud and the Free Market
Structural Weaknesses
Summary

Chapter 16: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Three Levels of Threat Perception
Israel’s Threat Environment
Hawks and Doves in the Political System
The Defense Establishment
Public Opinion
Summary

PART VI: THE TRANSFORMATiON OF ISRAELI POLITICSChapter 17: The Changing Political Arena
A More Complex Society
An Economic Transformation
Transformation of the Security Situation
The Israeli-Palestinian Relationship
Dampening of Ideology
Political Culture and the Party System
The Passing of a Heroic Generation
A More Consequential Arab Sector
The Transformation of the Judiciary
Change versus Continuity

Chapter 18: Confronting the Meaning of a Jewish State
The Political Question: What is Jewish and Democratic?
The Social Question: Who Belongs?
The Academic Question: Whose Historiography?
Conclusion

Appendices
Glossary
Bibliography

BRENT E. SASLEY is Associate Professor of Political Science at The University of Texas at Arlington.HAROLD M. WALLER is Professor of Political Science at McGill University.

Following the premature collapse of an eclectic right-wing and centre-left government, Israelis went to the polls on the 17 March, 2015. Despite what appeared to be a clear-cut right-wing victory, the thirty-fourth government of Israel was constituted 14 May, 2015, over two months after incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s apparent electoral triumph. This profile examines the contours of Israel’s recent election campaign and formation of a new government, assessing the triumphs and pitfalls of Israel’s major political parties during the election period. Similarly, this profile delineates the major political issues and dominant personalities featuring throughout the campaign. Subsequently, this profile traces the often-frantic coalition negotiations that led to formation of the thirty-fourth Israeli administration. Finally, the domestic and foreign policy implications of an increased hegemony of right-wing parties in the current government are outlined. Conversely, the narrow majority of the new government suggests ideological homogeneity may come with a price of increased political instability for Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The percentage of Israelis killed by terrorism is higher than in any other democracy. The article analyzes the threats Israel has faced, the impact terrorism has had on Israel, and the counter-terrorism policies Israel has adopted. Terrorism has had a decisive effect on Israeli elections and national security decisions, but not the economy. Israeli counter-terrorism has often been conducted without a coherent overall policy, has failed to reflect and conflicted with broader objectives, and has greatly undermined Israel’s international standing. Conversely, it has enabled Israel to live in relative security and thrive, and provided its leaders with the latitude to pursue various policies, including peace, should they wish to do so.

The goal of this note is to re-interpret and further analyze the results of Bargsted and Kedar (2009). BK use pre-electoral survey data for the 2006 Israeli legislative elections, and argue that a non-negligible set of individuals cast their vote in order to affect government formation and policy outcomes. Strategic considerations affect the likelihood of voting for Kadima, Labour or Likud, but not smaller parties. I contend that (i) what they are capturing is indistinguishable from a bandwagon effect, and (ii) their findings rely on the particular specification of the proxy for ‘expected coalition’ they use. I carry out the same exercise as BK using an extra set of controls for expected number of seats and an alternative specification of the proxy for expected coalition. My results show two interesting patterns. First, expected seats seem to be more important in voters’ strategies than coalition considerations. Second, there seems to be a compensatory strategic behavior among voters, as opposed to BK: increased likelihood of a rightist (leftist) coalition induces voters to vote less for rightist (leftist) parties. Finally, this note shows that model performance is significantly increased when using each of these two new variables, independently or together. These findings support the inclusion of such variables in all models which empirically assess strategic coalition voting behavior.

This book presents the main features of the Israeli constitutional system and a topical discussion of Israel’s basic laws. It focuses on constitutional history and the peculiar decision to frame a constitution ‘by stages’. Following its British heritage and the lack of a formal constitution, Israel’s democracy grew for more than four decades on the principle of parliamentary supremacy. Introducing a constitutional model and the concept of judicial review of laws, the ‘constitutional revolution’ of the 1990s started a new era in Israel’s constitutional history. The book’s main themes include: constitutional principles; the legislature and the electoral system; the executive; the protection of fundamental rights and the crucial role of the Supreme Court in Israel’s constitutional discourse. It further presents Israel’s unique aspects as a Jewish and democratic state, and its ongoing search for the right balance between human rights and national security. Finally, the book offers a critical discussion of the development of Israel’s constitution and local projects aimed at enacting a single and comprehensive text.

The study of celebrities has been the focus of several works from two main fields: Cultural Studies and Political Communication. But up until now, such works have produced only fragmented views of links between celebrity culture, the entertainment industries, and the political systems, which this book attempts to transcend. Analyzing the movement of celebrities to politics, this book contributes to a thorough understanding of the links between media industries and the political system, providing tools for grasping the varied ways in which media capital is converted into electoral power. To achieve this goal, Nahuel Ribke has assembled a wide range of data from the United States, Brazil and Israel, providing a complex comparative view of the migration of celebrities to politics, which incorporates a historical and cultural analysis, an examination of the respective political institutions, as well as an understanding of the impact local cultural industries had on the development of celebrity politics.

Table of Contents

1. Celebrity Politics: A Theoretical and Historical Perspective
PART I: TELEVISION CELEBRITIES AND ISRAELI POLITICS
2. Female Models in Israeli Politics: From the Runway to TV, and from the Small Screen to the Knesset
3. Like Father Like Son: Converting Media Capital into Political Power (Or, How an Israeli TV Presenter Became Finance Minister)
PART II: MAKING MUSIC MATTER: THE ELECTORAL POLITICS OF POP CELEBRITY IN LATIN AMERICA
4. Tropicalizing Politics: Gilberto Gil’s perplexing Miscegenation of Music and Politics
5. The Harvard Lawyer against The Bad Boy from Bronx: Explaining the Political Performance Gaps Between Rubén Blades and Willie Colón
PART III: CINEMA CELEBRITIES IN AMERICAN POLITICS
6. The American Pattern of Celebrity Politics: From ‘Military’ Role Model to Civilian Hero?
7. Entertainment Industries and ‘Liberal’ Celebrities: The Failure of Converting Attention into Political Power
PART IV: CELETOID POLITICS: VICTIMS, HEROES AND ORDINARY PEOPLE AS A VALUABLE ELECTORAL ASSET
8. Juan Carlos Blumberg and the Populism of Fear Politics in Argentina: Converting Mediatic Crimes into Political Capital
9. Reality Shows and Celebrity Politics: An Accelerated Platform for Rookie Politicians?
Conclusions
Bibliography
Index

NAHUEL RIBKE obtained his PhD from Tel Aviv University in 2010. His doctoral thesis examines the emergence and expansion of the Globo Television Network during the military regime in Brazil (1965-1985) through the analysis of historical, political, economic, cultural and technological aspects of television work. His research interests cover Institutional and Cultural Processes through Latin American Mass Media, Celebrity Politics and Mass Media History.

Despite resulting in a different party configuration, the results of the 2013 Israeli general election support a similar agenda to the one set by the previous government. A year following its establishment, all indicators suggest that the current government continues to deepen neoliberal policies. Nevertheless, this election reflects two important trends: first, an ever growing discontent in Israeli public that probably would not find a solution during the tenure of the incoming government; second, lack of interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that might generate negative long-term consequences.

Invoking the framework of religion and politics, this article contrasts the explicitly Judaic dimension to the 2009 elections in Israel with the implicitly Muslim one in 2007 in Nigeria. It also highlights the organizational, political, and theological similarities between fundamentalist (qua haredi) Judaism in Israel and fundamentalist (qua Sufi) Islam in Nigeria. Despite the obvious dissimilarities between Israel and Nigeria in terms of demography, standard of living, and dominant religion, both are relatively young democracies in which religious belief, practice and identification occupy key roles in their respective political behaviour and electoral politics. Both polities have also experienced increasing politicization of religion since independence. Proponents of legislating sharia in Nigeria and halacha in Israel unwittingly share compatible policies. Similarities in the organization, leadership, and political functionality of ultra-Orthodox and Sufi religious brotherhoods in the Jewish state and northern Nigeria transcend creedal differences.

Corruption was prominent in the run-up to the 2009 election, but did not affect the outcome. Two candidates accused of corruption, Benyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, led their parties to greater success than in the election of 2006. The candidate claiming to be free of corruption, Tzipi Livni, led her party to the most seats in Knesset, but not enough to overcome Netanyahu’s advantage of allies. Complicating the analysis of corruption and the election outcome is the fuzziness in the key concept. Corruption means different things to different communities and individuals. Israel is not free of corruption, but neither is it clearly more corrupt than other western democracies. Citizens may be inured to a chronic, but tolerable level of corruption, so that they do not consider it essential to guiding their votes.

As in many previous elections, the issues of peace and security were central to the outcome in 2009. The public’s turn to the right on these issues informed their electoral decisions, giving the parties of the Right a Knesset majority. However, this does not represent a return to the ideological agenda of territorial maximalism. Rather, the ‘New Right’ is focused primarily on security concerns, which it believes should be prioritized over peace diplomacy or further unilateral withdrawals. It operates within the overall ‘neo-centrist’ consensus which solidified in 2006, namely a willingness to make extensive territorial concessions in principle, coupled with opposition in practice due to a complete lack of faith that such concessions will bring Israel peace and security. Aside from this, there was one new and worrying development in the election campaign: the incitement of tension between Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens around the issue of peace and security.

The 18th Knesset currently seats 13 Arab and Druze MKs. This is one MK fewer compared to the corresponding figure in the 17th Knesset and the number of MKs representing predominantly Arab parties hardly changed (increasing from 10 to 11). These minor changes are surprising considering the formative nature of the events in the Jewish-Arab arena during the three years since the last elections. The article suggests that the same events which intensified the Arab desire to separate from the Jewish majority – The Israeli operation in Gaza during December 2008-January 2009 (“Cast Lead”) and the “Israel Beytenu” party’s campaign which has placed the issue of Israeli Arabs’ loyalty to their state at the top of its agenda – were the ones who motivated the Arabs to participate eventually in the elections to allay outcomes they perceived as deleterious to their interests.

The Israel Our Home (Israel Beiteinu, IB) party became the major surprise of the 2009 elections, winning 15 Knesset seats. Two-thirds of these seats were won through Russian speakers, who entered Israel in the recent waves of Russian Jewish immigration; and a third came from veteran and native Israelis. This composition showed a major dilemma of IB – to find a modus vivendi between the party’s nationwide aspirations and its predominantly Russian community character. The IB’s electoral success was a result of its concept of a ‘population and territories exchange’, which was a ‘neo-centralist alternative’ to both the ‘land for peace’ of the left and the ‘peace for peace’ concepts of the right, as well as the charismatic figure of the party leader Avigdor Lieberman, who better than anybody else succeeded in expressing the feeling of frustration of the various peripheral groups in Israeli society.

Cohen, Asher and Bernard Susser. "Stability in the Haredi Camp and Upheavals in Nationalist Zionism: An Analysis of the Religious Parties in the 2009 Elections." Israel Affairs 16,1 (2010): 82-104.

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Abstract

This study examines the respective performances of the various religious parties in the 2009 election. It concludes that while the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) parties broadly maintained their electoral strength, the national religious parties were rocked by debilitating conflicts, ideological splits and intra-institutional fractures which resulted in a substantial decrease in their Knesset representation.

This article presents the main reasons for the gradual decline, and eventually the marginalization, of the Labour Party. It starts with a general discussion of the decline of dominant parties in democratic political systems followed by a review of Labour’s decline. Then it proceeds to analyze in detail the reasons for Labour losing its centrality in Israeli politics. The article concludes with a few thoughts about the future of Israeli politics.